The Laramies
by Kyarana
Summary: Alice and Bill Laramie's son is moldy around the edges and in their clueless ways, they both try to find out what is wrong with him. This story is satire with dark humor thrown in and nobody in their right mind would take it seriously.


It was wintertime in Nashville down on music city row and Bill and Alice Laramie were trying to keep themselves out of the cold. Warm the frozen feelings that were eating at their souls. Things were not going great. Their first born boy was very damaged.

The time that morning was 7:30 and Alice was trying to balance the checkbook. "Tom, stop feeding the dog your breakfast and eat it yourself she yelled at her youngest from behind the secretary. "Your father paid good money for that and it's meant for you and not Razor."

"Aww Mom, he's drooling on my shoes." Tom tried to pat Razor who looked hopefully up at the hand with sad brown eyes. A sloppy wet tongue leaped out and slathered Ron's hand and arm with a cup of doggie saliva. Six year old Sarina saw it and immediately launched into paroxysms of laughter.

"Now you'll have to take a bath before you go to school." Tom hated baths and Sarina was secretly happy when the prospect of him getting one arose. Just then Steve walked into the kitchen tying his tie and he bent down and kissed his wife as he walked past her. "Where's Dirk?" asked Alice. "Is he awake yet?"

"I looked in his room as I went past; didn't see anything. I thought he was down here," replied Steve.

'"Well, he's not." Alice sighed when she thought of Dirk. Where had they gone wrong with him? He was only 14 years old and already showed signs of mildew around the edges.

She first began wondering about him since she found him behind the television in the family room counting his fingers. Well, maybe he wasn't counting his fingers but it was the only real accurate way she could explain what he was doing Alice had observed him for about two minutes during which time she had ticked off his fingers methodically 25 times - one right after another and in fact, she was beginning to get woozy when she came out of it.

"Dirk, what are you doing behind the TV set ?" she'd asked. When he turned to look up at her, his eyes were blank.

"Oh, Hi Mom." and he got up, dusted his pants off from the gooey things that are behind all televisions. He straightened the figurines on the top of the television and rearranged the silk flowers in their vase. Then he walked away, leaving her to wonder if she'd really seen what she thought she'd seen or if it was just a bad dream.

There'd been other instances of odd behavior since then, but he always made some pretense of normalcy when discovered. What was it with this kid? Did he have some type of seizure? Was he on drugs? Was he schizophrenic? Alice didn't know much about child psychology but this wasn't normal, or was it just the teenage years creeping up on her little boy? A devil worshiper? Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? Maybe that was it. But she worried all the same. Was it catching? Would the same thing happen to Tom when he got to be 14?

They had taken him to a child psychiatrist the previous week, a bookish and bald bespectacled guy by the name of Marcus A. Dansonn, Ph.D. who had a tic on his right eyelid. He appeared to have more hangups than Dirk and Alice wondered right off if this guy knew anything but he came highly qualified from the Journal of American Psychiatry. After examining Dirk and giving him all sorts of tests, the psychiatrist had advised patience with this phase. "He'll work himself out of this and be his own self quite soon. Nothing to worry about." Oh no nothing to worry about. Patience and nothing but patience the family had been giving out for the last eight days. It didn't seem to be helping much - if anything Dirk was worse. She thought maliciously old Marcus A. Dansonn, Ph.D. should see what patience had brought out in her boy so far.

Alice turned just in time to see an apparition coming toward her and involuntarily gasped. Good Lord, what was this? The face was pasty white and around the eyes were black smudges, at the corner of the blood red mouth were the black teardrops. The hair looked like mayonnaise had been combed through it, it'd been corn-row braided and left to dry and then un-braided. It wore a ragged multi-colored shirt over ripped tie-died jeans belted with a macrame rope tied sash that had bells on the ends that jangled as it walked toward her on feet that utilized open-toed black Birkenstocks.

"Good morning Dirk," Alice chimed and she kissed the proffered cheek. Following the advise of the psychiatrist to a "T". Nobody could say she wasn't trying to work things out. Nossir.

Dirk sat down and stared blankly at Sarina who ignored him. She ate her cereal, drank her milk, and read the side of the Post Toasties box. In fact, both kids ignored Dirk. On advise of the psychiatrist. Dirk didn't seem to notice the ignorance but started tapping his right index finger on the table top, the sound of which grated on Alice's patience. This kid wasn't getting any better; if anything, he was getting worse. Enough of this patience for the "phase" he was going through. Alice stuck a spoon in his hand and ordered him to start his breakfast before he got too late to get to school.

"Mbrfffftght", Dirk mumbled as he looked up at her.

"I said, start eating, or you'll be late."

"Reagleebutfumblegrump," replied Dirk.

"I don't care what he said, this has gone far enough. From now on, you get your act together."

"How do you know what he's saying Mom?" asked Ron. "It sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me."

"Hush up and eat your Krispies." Alice was frankly worried about Dirk now. This was definitely not a phase. She was not going to listen to any psychiatrist anymore. She aimed to find out what was wrong with her oldest.

That night as they watched Jay Leno on the 1967 black and white 17 inch Sony Trinitron TV at the foot of their bed, she brought up the subject to Bill. "Maybe there's something organically wrong with Dirk."

"Why would you say that? He looks like he has everything he needs that I can see. Two eyes, a nose, a mouth."

"Oh be serious for once. I mean something genetically wrong. You've got to admit, he's not getting any better by waiting this out."

"I think there's something genetically wrong with us watching this antique TV while our kid is in our bed room," said Bill. "Say, why is he here night after night? Doesn't he have his own room?".

Alice looked at him with murder in her eyes. "He's going through a 'phase'," she said with venom.

"You just said it looked like he had something organically wrong with him."

"You know what's wrong with him? He's crazier than a loon and waiting this out won't help."

"Well then why did you say he was going through a 'phase'?"

"I didn't say that, this 'expert' did."

Bill looked over at his first born who was sitting on the floor bashing his head against the wall behind him. "So what do you suggest we do?"

"I'm going to do some research," Alice said. Maybe he has OCD or wry neck."

"Wry neck, oh yeah, sure. Wry neck would explain it all."

Some time later, when Alice was up to her neck in books, manuals and newspaper clippings she had dragged out of the city library, Bill walked into the mud room that served as a mini-stopping place for the kids as they tore into the house for refreshments. They were just going to tear out of the house anyway after they'd finished their junk food, why not park in the mud room and let the rest of the house escape their destruction. Alice looked up at Bill, her eyes bleary.

"Man, Bill. This is not fun at all. Just one big bore. I wish there was some button I could push and everything I could ever hope to want to know could come up on a screen. Right in front of me. All I'd need do is point at it and voila! Instant knowledge"

"You think big, What kind of screen? Like a TV screen? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard of."

However, he sat down and sympathetically waved his hand over the pile of literature as if by some miracle that action could instantly transfer the information contained within the pages to Alice's brain.

"I have a little project myself I feel like embarking on," began Bill. "This little project could instantly drive away all the misconceptions or whatever you're learning. In fact, it's so simple, I should have thought of this ages ago. Why not ask our parents if there is any insanity that runs in the family?"

Alice looked at him murderously. "You could have brought this up two weeks ago . Why are you just talking about it now?"

"It takes a while for me to think about things. As it does for you. You never thought of it either, have you?"

Alice slammed shut the Leebecker Journal of Medical Anomalies and said, "Well, I suppose that's better than any TV screen. Let's get started then."

The next day over cups of coffee, Alice asked her mother, Martha, if there were any relatives who acted strange. Anyone in her recent memory. In the last three generations.

"Well, let's see," began Martha as she looked back into her brain. 'There was my uncle Timmy who was sort of out of it. He was always holding conversations with people who passed on. Said he could see their souls. Seemed to be a bunch of hogwash to me but one day, he started talking to Aunt Vivian, then I knew it was hogwash because Vivian wasn't dead.

"She wasn't," repeated Alice.

"No, not a chance. Though after listening to him day in and day out, she finally went stark raving mad and ended up clucking like a duck for the rest of her days."

"Why?" asked Alice.

"She figured he knew something she didn't." answered Martha.

"What was that?"

"I guess he knew she was dead."

"But she was still walking around."

"Yeah, well. That doesn't count for much when someone talks like you're dead."

"Well, maybe she thought he could foretell the future and she was going to die."

"Well, everybody dies. Then there was my great aunt who thought she saw cracks on the walls and was always trying to patch them up with Elmer's Glue."

"Wasn't that sticky?" asked Alice.

"Of course, it ran down the walls and made everything a mess. Her husband finally had to hide the glue in his safe. Then there was my cousin, Bob, who went bonkers after his wife Irma died after a hit and run driver ran over her. He started standing on street corners downtown, waving these little Gideon New Testaments, yelling for people to save themselves." Martha was quiet as she reflected. "Tsk, tsk. Pathetic."

That night Alice told Bill about her looney relatives.

"Huh. Does answer some questions about Dirk, doesn't it?"

"Maybe."

"I have another bright idea that just came to me. What if Dirk had an identical twin somewhere? Would he be as insane"

Alice looked at him wearily, "God Bill, some of the things you say are brilliant."

"Well, it's something to think about. I wonder if we can figure out if he has an identical twin adopted out somewhere."

That threw Alice off for all of three seconds. It also made her think of her Aunt Mimi who had identical twins one day that she put up for adoption to different people. "An Egyptian couple got one and they called him Amal. The other twin went to a Spanish couple and they called him Juan."

"Why did she adopt them out?" asked Bill.

"I think she already had five kids, I'm not sure."

"Oh, that's logical. Too many kids running around, she'd be driven to distraction I suppose."

Alice waited and he said no more. "Well," she said. "Do you want to hear the rest of the story?"

"Well, go on ahead. I'm dying of curiosity."

"OK. One day about 20 years later, she got a letter from Juan who also enclosed his picture. Aunt Mimi was pretty sad because she really wanted to see what Amal looked like."

"Well, why? They were identical anyway; once she saw Juan, she saw Amal."

With that, Bill launched into uncontrollable horse laughs, which eventually lead to frantic choking as he tried breathlessly to breathe. Alice leaped over the bed and started pounding on his back as Dirk's head kept on beating against the wall regularly.

However, it wasn't as easy for Bill to learn of his relatives. He put off talking to his father until the day after the Southern Conference foot ball game on the Sports Network station on the TV. Bill was just sitting there at half time impassively looking at the marching bands and as the camera scanned the crowd. He saw the Milford Chicken running after this one buxom Bradenton Coyotes cheerleader. Up and down the sidelines they ran, she was shrieking, dodging hither and yon and was bouncing all over the place. Finally the Chicken took a flying leap after the cheerleader and fell flat on his beak squashing it into the astroturf. Bill laughed so hard at that hilarious sight that he started choking an ended up swallowing his gum. Bill choked a lot, he was predisposed or something.

Alice came to the doorway of the kitchen to see what was happening. "Bill, if you're not too engrossed with this entertainment, why not go outside and mow the lawn, it does need it." Bill looked at her and said "I was just going to talk with Dad about relatives."

But even though he was all set to go, it took him until the next day to make it over to his parent's house. Dirk sat sewing his ears together and weaving his laces back into his tennis shoes when Bill walked past him toward the front door.

"What is that you're doing, Dirk?"

"Ohuh?"

"Why not try sewing your shoe laces to your ears? That might be fun."

"Don't give him any ideas!" Alice yelled from the laundry room.

At his mother's house, Bill asked her about any relatives. Francine didn't seem too very concerned about anything Bill asked her. She either didn't know, or wanted to wait until his father came back from painting the Daly Street bridge. Bill however was quite insistent. Finally after probably 15 minutes of getting nowhere, he lost his cool.

"Mom, I demand to know something! Surely you know if any of our relatives had any mental defect, for Christ sakes!"

"William, William, William, you know I'd never hurt you, and I don't think you knowing anything about my brothers or cousins or ancestors could help any."

"And why may I ask?"

"Because...you're adopted."

"What?"

"Dad and I went down to the Morningstar Adoption Agency, put in our application and brought you home when you were ten days old."

"I'm adopted? Forty-three years later you're just getting around to telling me I'm adopted?"

"Yes, now you see why knowing about our ancestors wouldn't help any?"

After that bombshell, Bill walked out of the house in a trance stepping full square in a pile of dog offerings on the sidewalk and leaving tracks down the sidewalk. He repeated monotonously, "I can't believe it. I'm adopted. My folks aren't my folks."

He was still in a state of shock when he walked through the doorway of his own house. Alice looked up from where she was trimming the cat's hair. "What did you find out?" she yelled.

Bill didn't say anything but just walked past her into the den. Sarina, watching Ren and Stimpy on the TV crossly told him he made a better door than a window. In other words, 'Get out of the way, I'm trying to watch TV.'

Alice followed him into the den. "Bill, what did you find out now?"

He looked at her blankly and said, "I'm adopted."

"What?" she said.

"Adopted. My relatives aren't my relatives. I have no family. I'm not who I think I am. Nothing is real. Everything is a lie."

"No family?! What are we, chopped liver? What is this house, a dream?"

Bill then snapped out of his blue funk and sat in his recliner. "Yeah, how about that; I'm adopted. My mom...or that lady who raised me, she said I came from Morningstar Adoption Agency."

"You're adopted? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because Sweetchips, I didn't know myself until fifteen minutes ago."

Sarina asked, "Am I adopted? Is Ron adopted? How about Dirk?"

"Nobody is adopted."

"I think I'll go down on Monday and ask them who my mother is. That would be a real kick to learn who my mother is."

"I'd rather find out if any of your relatives are crazy," said Alice.

"Maybe my mother can tell me."

"Adopted, good grief." Alice had never known anyone who had been adopted. How could any mother give up her own child? Of course her aunt had so she guessed it was possible. If she had to give up a child for adoption, she'd hand over Dirk. But would any adoption agency take him?

On Monday, Bill was at Morningstar at 8:00 A.M. and talking to a Miss Sorrennsen about who his parents were.

"I'm sorry, we at Morningstar are not able to give out that information. It's privileged and private. The file has been sealed." Nocando.

"What would it take to get it?"

"A court order."

"A court order!" He stood up and walked toward the door then he whirled around, his hand in his pocket and pointed it at her. "All right, are you going to get me the information I need, or shall I be forced to shoot up this place with this 30.06 I have in my pocket. What is it, hmm?"

"Thirty aught six. Isn't that a rifle?"

"Well, whatever this number is." He took a quick peak. "This gun?"

She looked at him and thought better of challenging this lunatic. "All right, you can have it." She was calling Security when Bill happily hopped out of her office, a phone number in hand.

Two minutes later, Bill was happily dialing the phone number Sorrennsen had given him. A lady answered. "Hi, would you happen to have any information on an 18 year old girl who gave birth to a boy on November 23, 1952?"

"Yeah sure. She's my daughter and her name is Martha Hansen now."

"Martha Hansen? How about that, it's my mother-in-law's name too."

"No kidding, what a coincidence. Her phone number is 555-2597. If you call her, tell her I said Hi."

Bill froze. A telephone prefix in his town was 555. His mother was living in his town? But he didn't tell the woman. "Thank you," he said and hung up the phone. 'Wait a minute, that was my grandmother! Wonder what she looks like." He dialed the latest number he had been given which rang twice when it was picked up.

"Hello." the voice answered. What? That was Alice's mother.

"Hi Mom, what are you doing answering this phone?"

"You called me. It rang, I picked it up. Why are you calling me?"

"I'm not calling you, I'm calling my mom."

"You've gotten your numbers mixed up again, Bill."

"Huh?"

"Your mother's number is 555-3293. At least that's the number I use when I want to talk to her and it works."

"Oh her. She's only who raised me. I'm calling for my real mom."

"What?"

"My birth mom, I'm adopted! Can you believe it?"

"You're adopted? Why didn't anyone let me know?"

"I didn't know myself until a few minutes ago. Her name is Martha Hanson too, quite a coincidence huh?"

Martha paused, then giggled weakly. "Yeah, haha. What a coincidence."

Something finally started the cogwheels going in Bill's thick brain."Your name is Martha Hanson."

"Yes, hahahaha."

"Did you put up a boy for adoption in November 1952?"

"Yes, haha. I did."

"You're my mother?" he squeaked.

"Must be," she answered.

"Does Alice know about this?"

"No nobody does."

"Mother. I found you at last. Who's my father?" he asked.

"My husband, George," she replied.

"Oh. Well why did you give me up?"

"We weren't married and George had a big promotion coming up and it wouldn't have been feasible to get married at that time. So when you were born, we contacted Morningstar and signed the papers and handed you over," she said all in one breath. "So, you're my boy." Welcome to my world Dear, I always wondered how you turned out." She was crying so hard he could hardly understand her.

"Oh Mom, we've got a lot of catching up to do. We have got to get together and have coffee and I'll tell you about the life I've had. I've married the sweetest girl and have three kids now."

"Bill, my boy. I'm so happy," and she honked her nose into a Kleenex almost blew Bill's ear off.

*This guy is DENSE - whooee*

On the way home, Bill basked in the knowledge of his newly found mother and happily dreamed about how they'd be best friends now that things were out in the open. Imagine that, his mother was his mother-in-law too and living in the same town he did. Talk about coincidences. He had been living next to his mother all along. And what was even better, he and his wife now shared another amazing coincidence..."We both have the same parents. Neat."

?!

Bill's cogwheels turned over and creaked in his tired brain once more. "Why, Alice and I are siblings then. She's my sister! How about that, what wonderful news."

!?

The reason for Dirk's terrifying condition slowly became more clear. Alice's insane uncles were his insane uncles. Well, it made more sense now. He turned up the walk to his house once again stepping into another pile of dog offal.

"Alice!" he yelled as he walked through the front door.

"What!" she shouted back. "Hey you stepped in something." she postulated as he walked across the tan carpeting leaving brown shoe prints. Bill ignored her.

"Alice," He said. "You'll never believe this, but my birth mother is your mother, Martha. We're brother and sister! How about that? And with our insane cousins, Dirk got a double shot of insanity."

"Alice stared up at him,"No kidding, what do you know. Um-hmmm it's stating to make sense now. Well I'll be. No wonder we resemble each other. I just thought with 17 years of marriage we just started looking alike."

"Awwwww, that doesn't happen until you've been married for 50 years or more."

"You're my brother! I'll be damned, I always wanted a big brother."

"And I always dreamed of a sibling, any sibling. This is great, we should tell the kids. I wonder what this makes the kids, double siblings?"

"Hey, this explains why Sarina has that extra eye in the middle of her forehead," hollered Alice.

"Bill looked at her. "Sarina has an extra eye?"

DUH


End file.
